Exposer

It's peaks and valleys for me. I'm always up on current WWE. I have an obsessive personality so I'll watch the same wrestler or company over a period of time until I get sick of it. I love too much other stuff like football, basketball, and Netflix. This means I get caught up in those hobbies over wrestling sometimes.

This show ruled. I'm even more pumped for SCI now than ever.

I've made the argument for watching Raw as a habit before. It's probably more like I always find something I enjoy about Raw, even on the really bad shows. I'm also someone who's 22 years old and only started watching wrestling in 2000. I don't have memories of a different time or whatever. I do make fun of WWE a lot on Twitter, but I also make sure to point out the things that I enjoy. EDIT: It's probably worth mentioning that I'm easily pleased in wrestling and it takes a lot for me to stop watching a product consistently.

Got a chance to watch Sasha-Becky and Joe's debut. Sasha-Becky is a great match. I will pretty much echo what most everyone says. The dueling arm work is awesome and both sell really well throughout. I want to point out that Sasha is a really good bumper. She doesn't take wild bumps or anything but she puts a lot of impact into them such as the suplex or flying dropkick in this match. The finish in this is great too. I didn't have time to watch Owens-Zayn so I skipped to the post-match which is great. Joe's debut is pretty cool.

Don't you listen to your brother's conspiracy theories? Sometimes. I did think "Of course the Game's finisher is the greatest of all-time and the only one that can put people away." I just didn't linger on it.

Seth Rollins vs Dean Ambrose vs Roman Reigns vs Randy Orton (WWE Title Fatal Four Way) - This was reaching great status towards the end, but I thought the finish was weak. There are better ways to end that match in my opinion. That was a shitty pedigree too. I don't know if that was a tease of a Rollins-HHH feud down the line or not. Maybe that will happen post-Summerslam. Maybe not.

Bad News Barrett vs Neville - This was solid. Neville's dive is easily the craziest in WWE. The finish was lame, but I didn't hate it. Neither guy lost so that's good.The post-match was a little too long though. I wish they could have just added that stuff into the match. Neville could have broken Barrett's scepter when he tried to use it and Barrett rolls out of the ring for the count out when Neville goes for the Red Arrow. There's no need for post-matches that could be a part of the match.

The Bellas vs Naomi & Tamina - This sucked. Brie almost died on that head drop.

Well unless they reverse history that isn't how they have portrayed Lana. Lana has never been an American girl who turned her back on her country to become Russian. She has been a Russian girl who has lived most of her life in the US In an interview with Rene Young two weeks ago she started the interview in clear, perfect English, stopped herself, and went back to speaking in her fake Russian English.

John Cena vs Rusev (US Title I Quit Match) - This started out slow then actually got pretty entertaining at times. I actually think they had a few great false finishes with the electrocution stage spot and Cena passing out to the Accolade. I think the finish was that Lana mistranslated Rusev because she's American and is prone to making translation errors. Therefore, I don't think Rusev actually quit. The finish wasn't good, but I don't think it was nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Yeah, I actually thought there were several moments like that. They could have done that a few other times in the match. It probably needed three to five more minutes.

Ryback vs Bray Wyatt - When Bray locked on a chinlock I thought "Oh boy." They decided to make it interesting though with the senton off the apron, the big clothesline on the floor and Bray working over Ryback's ribs. I liked the frog splash spot and near fall. Ryback did a pretty decent job of selling the ribs. I liked the finish too even if it was set-up too quickly. Bray's still uninteresting as a character though.

Cesaro/Kidd vs New Day (Tag Titles) - I liked this match, but 2/3 falls sprints are really hard to do. They needed to slow things down and go longer, but they didn't have the time. They tried a lot of crazy stuff in this. Most of it worked, some of it didn't. Cesaro was especially going crazy with power spots. I thought the finish was clever and did a good job of putting more heat on New Day.

Sheamus vs Dolph Ziggler - This was going okay but I wanted Sheamus to stay on top more. It got better after the "Kiss my Arse" payback spot which was a good spot even it were meta. The cloverleaf spot was really good. Then the finish happened. Dolph's headbutt was sickening. I haven't seen blood like that in WWE in years and years. He bled more than Lesnar at Mania. The finish was awesome with the Brogue Kick putting the bloody Ziggler away.

The Meta Powers vs The Ascension - WWE is approaching TNA levels with these impersonation gimmicks. Axel truly is an idiot for hulking up early. This match sadly was pretty much a squash with Ascension winning. Sandow was the most over act in the company just a little over a month ago. Now he's taking falls against fucking Connor.

R-Truth vs Stardust - Of all the surprise pre-show matches we get this. It actually wasn't awful but I hate Cody Rhodes right now. The Stardust character is stupid. I don't know what it means that Cody Rhodes whipped a black man while in a BDSM outfit but I digress. This time could have been filled with PTPs vs Matadores or Lucha Dragons vs Wyatts or something.

Los Traumas are awesome. Trauma II almost never has a bad mat exchange. There was a period for a few years where he was one of the elite mat wrestlers in the world. I'm inclined to believe he still is, but I can't afford to get my hands on a lot of his footage. It's unlikely he'll make my list but I think he's worth discussing for fans of modern lucha.

goc, have you seen the Kane No DQ match from SD this week? It might be the best Kane match all year. It's a pretty stiff match and both guys work really hard in it.

He worse a cowboy hat, poncho and had a cow whip! As someone from Tennessee I refuse to accept Dutch in this category. I get why you put him in there though.

This is a great list although Dutch is a Tennessee guy. He spent too much time in Memphis, SMW, and Tennessee indies.

Character work might be it. Although, Edge beats him with bad character work in my opinion. Orton has lots of good matches from a technical standpoint. He won't make my list because of his bad character work or whatever the case may be. A wrestler who can't build heat or sympathy isn't a great wrestler. It's funny because I loved Orton as a kid. I thought he was a cool heel. I still think he's good technically, but he's awfully boring nowadays.

I watched some Randy Orton recently, and I think I've found his problem. He has good offense, one of the best dropkicks I've ever seen, a great finisher, has been really over at several points in his career, is an underrated bumper, has the capability to do the little things right, is great at counter sequences, and has outstanding timing. He's not the best at selling, but he's not awful at it. The problem with Randy Orton is as a heel when he's on offense, he's not interesting. When he's a face and he's working underneath there's never a point where he's sympathetic. He's literally good at everything except the most important qualities for a face and heel in wrestling which is to build heat or sympathy. He's one of the most bizarre wrestler's ever for that. I think that's why a lot of people hate him. This might mean he has no charisma since charisma is usually needed to build heat or sympathy, but I don't think that's always the case. Plus, I think Orton is more charismatic than some believe. He probably won't make my list, but I thought this was an interesting point I wanted to share to see what everyone else thinks.

I've only scratched the surface with him, but I think Salvaje was a pretty great 90s rudo. I've seen several trios from that period where he works his shtick in really well. He can bump, throw a nasty strike, and do comedy exceptionally well. He was particularly good in a trios with Los Supremos against Aguila Solitaria, Ciclon Ramirez, and El Pantera bumping and stooging. I will say I didn't like his singles hair match versus Casas. I was structurally poor and not worked in a traditional stakes match style so I came out of it pretty disappointed. I want to see more of his stuff before I can make a definitive answer on him. I am considering him at this point.

Matt Hardy is better than Chris Jericho. I've only scratched the surface, but I'm inclined to believe there are at least several Hardy Boyz TV tags from 99-02 and 06-08 that are fun to great. I know I've seen a few really fun Radical tags from late 00-early 01. That's just bringing up the matches people wouldn't think about. When talking about matches of Jericho's that are scattered on TV over the years, he has fun to great ones as well. Hardy has been more consistent than Jericho though in these matches. Even if it's just been in the last five years, Jericho on off nights is pretty bad. He's terribly sloppy and has a tendency to run through spots that don't look any good. I've seen bad Matt Hardy performances too. They are similar to Jericho in sloppiness, but he has much fewer of them. When adding in other random TV matches like Matt-Punk or Matt-Drew Mac vs Jericho-Bourne or Jericho-Morrison I'd have to pick Matt. These examples of course are on a small scale, but I think they're very important. When you look at the big scale I'm a huge fan of the Hardyz-MNM feud, the Matt-Edge feud, Matt Hardy's TV work from 06-08, his ECW Title run, the Drew Mac feud, and his indie performances in the last year. I love the Jericho-Michaels and Jericho-Rock feuds, but there's no other series of matches from Jericho that really stand out. The Benoit and Eddie matches are good to great, but I don't think I like them more than say the Matt-Edge or Hardyz-MNM feud. I definitely don't like them more than Matt's TV run on SD and ECW from 06-08. Matt was pretty bad in TNA for awhile, but Jericho's been bad in WWE for almost five years. I'm comfortable calling Matt Hardy a better wrestler than Chris Jericho.

Oh My God I had a few of these action figures. I would carry them around the house and water would get everywhere!